'Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of 'The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland' 'The Sacred City of the Ethiopians' 'The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks' etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent' [‎9] (20/552)

IX
INTRODUCTION
under the rule of the savagely anti-Western successor of the Mahdi,
was hardly less dangerous. Once again it was an area of great interest
to the British Government for the Commander-in-Chief of the
Egyptian Army, General Sir Herbert Kitchener and his very able
intelligence chief, later General Sir Reginald Wingate, were busy
planning the campaign that was to end in conquest in the battle of
Omdurman. The account in Southern Arabia is one of the very few
sources on this period.
At the end of 1896 the Bents spent two months on Socotra studying
a civilization as unique as any that they had encountered. The island
has always been a strange mixture of Mahri, Arab and African
peoples and customs which had not really been reported upon since
Wellstead in the 1830s and was not again to be fully studied until a
British expedition in 1967. During the twentieth century Socotra
remained isolated and unchanging and a member of the expedition
told me that they found the chapter in Southern Arabia their best
guide and the starting point of much of their work. The amateur
naturalist who accompanied the Bents brought back six edible birds
and nearly a hundred insects, many of them not previously identified.
From Socotra the party went to Aden and in February 1897 set off
to the country of the Fadhli and Yafai tribes to the north east. Once
again they described people and landscapes never before seen by
Westerners.
Theodore, however, had been struck down by malaria and died in
May 1897 four days after their return to England. In a memorial
tribute. Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical
Society, mourned a "very accomplished man, both as an archaeologist
and geographer, a charming companion and a true friend".